A Scandalous Adventure Read online

  “Honestly. Have none of you any sense?” Susannah stood up and glared at the two officers. “This could not possibly succeed.” There were a hundred reasons why it would fail. Now all she had to do was think of one. Of course! She smiled triumphantly. “For example, the princess must have attendants who will know she has gone and who will know at once that Olivia is not the princess.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Olivia, looking regretful. “Her maids, her ladies-in-waiting would know right away. It’s almost impossible to fool servants.”

  Max shook his head, still smiling. “No, they would not know, not the servants who remain. Only her maid and her bodyguards knew her well, and they vanished with her. Suse, you and Lady Augusta can be the princess’s attendants, her ladies-in-waiting. You will travel to Nymburg and be in the castle with her. You will be with her all the time.”

  “Stop calling me Suse!” When she turned back, she could see Olivia and Aunt Augusta looking hopefully at each other. Surely they could not be seriously considering this lunacy. Olivia was always throwing herself into things before she thought them through, and Aunt Augusta—Great God in Heaven! Aunt Augusta was thinking it would be fun. Susannah knew she had to inject some common sense into this discussion. “How long has your princess been gone?” she demanded.

  “Three days,” Max—Captain Staufer—said.

  “And if you haven’t found her yet, what makes you think you will find her in another few days? Or weeks or months? What if you don’t find her before the wedding? Surely you don’t expect Olivia to marry your prince, do you?”

  The general shook his head. “We have men, trusted men, searching all the ways out of the country, but we have not yet heard from them all. It will not take long. A few days will surely be enough.”

  Lady Augusta cocked her head. “How have you explained the delay so far?”

  “We sent a wire ahead to say that the princess has a slight indisposition and is staying at a schloss, a manor house, on my estate until she recovers,” said Staufer.

  “Lady Olivia, you cannot know how much it would mean to us if you would undertake to do this.” The general took her hand again. “You would save not only the prince, but the people of Sigmaringen.”

  Olivia looked at Susannah, eagerness in her eyes. “It does seem that they really need our help.”

  Susannah wanted to shake her. “You do not have to help everyone who asks you! This could be an utter disaster.”

  “No, no, don’t think that way. Instead, think how exciting it would be.” Lady Augusta turned to Olivia, beaming with delight. “Imagine having a chance to be a real princess. You can’t possibly refuse.”

  “Imagine me being a princess.” Olivia giggled. “Wouldn’t those nasty cats in London have a fit!”

  Susannah wanted to scream, but Max took her hands in his—in his big, strong hands—and suddenly her knees felt weak. He grinned at her. “Ah, Suse, don’t turn timid on me. You know you could do it. Think what an adventure we will have. And you need not worry. I will not let anything happen to you.”

  She could feel herself wavering, and then she pulled away. Once he was no longer holding her hands, sanity returned. “I will not let anything happen to me. You are mad, all of you. Completely mad. You”—she pointed at the count and the general—“out of here. Get out right now! I am going to talk some sense into these two ladies.”

  The general was still pleading and the captain was still smiling as she pushed them out and slammed the door on them.

  “Really, Susannah, don’t you think you were being rather rude?” Aunt Augusta pursed her lips and frowned.

  “Rude? When they are proposing to involve you and Olivia in some harebrained scheme? Words fail me!”

  They did not fail her, of course. She spent the next several hours explaining to Lady Olivia and Lady Augusta why they could not possibly allow themselves to be dragged into General Bergen’s lunatic scheme.

  “But they need help,” Olivia pleaded.

  “The fact that they need help does not mean that we have to give it to them. Nor does it mean that this plan of the general’s has any chance of success.”

  “Honestly, Susannah, I don’t understand how your parents ever produced such a cowardly little mouse.” Lady Augusta sniffed.

  “Cowardly? A mouse?” Susannah was outraged. “Just because I am the only one with at least a smidgen of common sense?”

  “Yes, cowardly. If you aren’t careful, you will turn into a shriveled old maid who’s afraid of life, never daring to step outside her own front door.” Aunt Augusta glared at her. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  Susannah was so furious she could not speak, but just stood there with her mouth opening and closing.

  “And besides,” said Olivia, totally ignoring all of Susannah’s objections, “I would have a chance to be a princess for a few days. You know how everyone always looks down on me because of my mother, and because no one believes that my father really was my father.”

  “That’s not true,” Susannah protested, but she knew that it was. She just hadn’t realized that Olivia was so aware of it.

  “Just for a few days, everyone would be looking up to me instead.” Olivia’s eyes were shining at the very thought of it all.

  The next day they were en route to Sigmaringen.

  Six

  London

  Anne, Lady Penworth, walked into her husband’s office waving a piece of paper. “Phillip, I have just received the oddest letter from Susannah.”

  The Marquess of Penworth looked up from the pile of papers on his desk and smiled at his wife. “An odd letter from Susannah? I didn’t know our daughter knew how to write odd letters.”

  “That’s what makes it so odd.” Lady Penworth settled herself in the comfortable chair by the fireside that her husband kept for her in his office. “She says that they are going to Nymburg. I’ve never even heard of Nymburg. Where on earth is it?”

  Penworth called his attention back from admiring the picture his wife made in her green dress with that lacy confection on her head. “Hmm? Nymburg?” He frowned for a moment. “Ah, yes. It’s the capital of one of those little German states in the south, near Switzerland. But I thought they were settled in Baden for the time being. What do they want to go to Nymburg for?”

  “I’m not sure. She doesn’t say. Is it far from Baden?” Lady Penworth was staring at the letter.

  “No, I don’t think so.” Lord Penworth got up and went over the enormous globe in the corner of the room and turned it slowly until he found what he was looking for. “Ah, there it is, in Sigmaringen, which is just south of Hechingen, and the two of them are tucked in between Baden and Württemberg. A pair of those tiny little states that are likely to be gobbled up soon by either Prussia or Austria.” He shrugged. “I don’t know of anything interesting about either one of them. I should have thought Baden would be more pleasant for them.”

  “I would have thought so too, but she definitely says they are off to Nymburg. The truly odd thing is that she says we shouldn’t bother to write to them there because she doesn’t know precisely where they are staying, but it will be for only a few days. She’ll tell us all about it later.”

  “She doesn’t know where they will be staying? You’re sure the letter is from Susannah?” He laughed and put up a hand to ward off his wife’s glare. “It just doesn’t sound like our Susannah. Before they set foot out of the house, she had every stop on their itinerary planned down to the minute.”

  “I know,” Lady Penworth said. “That’s why I found it so disconcerting. It doesn’t sound like Susannah at all.”

  Lord Penworth began to frown. “You don’t suppose she’s allowed herself to be dragged into some mad scheme of Augusta’s, do you? Or of Olivia’s?”

  His wife was frowning too. “I wouldn’t have thought that possible. I was relying on Susann
ah to keep them in check. Perhaps I was asking too much of her. She has always been so sensible and mature that I tend to forget how young she is.”

  “I’m sure that if there is any serious problem, she will let us know.” He gave the globe a worried turn.

  “Yes.” Lady Penworth drew the word out as she stared at the letter. “I’m sure she will. But it is odd.”

  Seven

  Sigmaringen

  No trains ran from Baden to Wald, the town—village, really—closest to Staufer’s schloss, so they went by carriage. Even the sturdy coach could not disguise the fact that the roads they traveled were little more than unpaved country lanes. If this had been Princess Mila’s introduction to her new home, Susannah could understand why she had fled.

  They all rode in the coach, a nondescript black one, to preserve their anonymity. That meant they were a bit crowded—more than a bit. Their crumpled skirts might never recover. The ladies were crushed together in the forward-facing seat with Olivia sandwiched in the middle, making it even less likely that she might be seen along the route. Facing them, Captain Staufer took up more than his fair share of the space here as he did everywhere.

  To Susannah’s annoyance, he took up more than his fair share of her thoughts as well. How could she ignore him when he was right there in front of her with that smile on his face? That smug smile, as if he knew…

  Blast!

  As if he knew that he was the real reason she had agreed to this idiocy. The chance to learn more about him had proved irresistible.

  She could not have him think that she was a coward, that all she cared about was propriety, that all those things Aunt Augusta had said were true. He didn’t know what Aunt Augusta had said, of course, but he would probably have thought the same things if Susannah had adamantly refused to allow this…this whatever it was…to go forth.

  Having common sense is not cowardice. And behaving properly is not prudishness. It’s simple courtesy. Good manners make people comfortable. They…

  Why wouldn’t the blasted man stop smiling at her in that infuriating, knowing way!

  Susannah turned her head determinedly to look out the window at the trees. That was all there seemed to be—trees. Endless forests of dark evergreens, with occasional bursts of color from the yellow and orange leaves of birch and beech trees. Were there no people in this land? No towns or even villages? Nothing but forest?

  And dust. The horses kicked up a cloud of dust as they trotted along, and it crept into the coach despite the closed windows. Her nose was filled with dust and the smell of dust.

  The coach hit a bump that sent her up in the air, and then it lurched to the side. She would have landed on the floor had Captain Staufer not caught her. He held her suspended, a look of concern on his face, while she tried to remember how to breathe. When she could manage a smile, he placed her gently back on the seat.

  In her corner, Lady Augusta was not smiling. “I do not wish to be insulting, but the roads in Sigmaringen leave something to be desired.”

  “My apologies to you all,” said the general, frowning but not looking at all apologetic. “I thought it best to avoid the main roads. Here in the forest, we are unlikely to be observed, and if we are, it will be only by woodcutters and huntsmen.”

  Lady Augusta did not look appeased, but Lady Olivia smiled cheerfully. “Well, that makes it even more of an adventure, doesn’t it?”

  The prospect of an adventure appealed to Susannah less and less. Baden may have been dull, with its rigidly formal gardens and broad paths for invalids in wheelchairs, but it had become familiar. Safe. Now they were traveling into the unknown, and she was worried. Worse, she was cold—so cold that she shivered.

  “It will not be much longer, perhaps an hour, until we reach the schloss.” Captain Staufer seemed to be addressing all of them, though he was looking only at Susannah. “There you will be able to recover in comfort.”

  * * *

  Suse, Lady Susannah, had been right, Max acknowledged to himself. This was a foolish scheme. Yes, they might be able to pull it off, especially if they could find the princess within the next few days, as the general had said. Find her and put her back in place with a minimum of temper tantrums.

  It might well be more sensible to tell Prince Conrad that the princess had run off. It would doubtless make a scandal if the news got out, but they might be able to keep it quiet. Her father could hardly complain when his daughter was the one creating the problem.

  Sensible, but was Conrad ready to deal with such a problem? He was still, in many ways, so very young and inexperienced. Above all, it was Max’s duty to protect Conrad, and that often meant taking care of problems that would be too much for the young prince to handle.

  Besides, even if telling Conrad might be sensible, it would not be nearly as much fun. They would be playing a huge joke on everyone, and they could do it. Max was sure of it.

  There had been a chance that Susannah would convince her friends to refuse, but she did have a sense of adventure. He had suspected it from the start. A woman who flew to protect her friend armed with nothing more than a frivolous parasol was hardly a prim and proper mouse.

  This way he would have a chance to further his acquaintance with her. At the very least, they would have a few days at his schloss while they all prepared for the masquerade.

  To allow her to disappear from his life after such a brief encounter would have been a pity.

  * * *

  Susannah knew that a schloss could be anything from a castle down to a cottage with dreams of glory. Captain Staufer’s home was one of the middling sort—three stories high but very plain, with unornamented walls of white stucco and a red roof. It was approached via a bridge over a small lake that bordered one side of the building and looked as if it might once have been part of a moat.

  The coach drew up not at the main entrance but at a small side door, and the ladies were whisked silently up a back staircase to the rooms in which, Staufer explained, the princess had been “recuperating.”

  To Susannah’s delight, a lively fire was burning in the sitting room. She pulled off her gloves and held her hands out to the warmth. A small sigh of pleasure escaped her.

  “It is chilly here,” Staufer acknowledged. “The schloss is fairly high up in the mountains.”

  “Do you keep fires burning all the time in empty rooms? It seems a bit extravagant.”

  He laughed. “Hardly. But it is important to keep up the pretense that the princess is here, keeping to her rooms. And it seemed unlikely that she would wish to sit in the cold, so the fires have been kept up, and light meals have been brought for her.”

  “How…thorough of you.” Susannah was not sure she liked it that he was so adept at—well—lying, to call it by its rightful name.

  The smile twisted, and he averted his eyes. “That is one of the less pleasant lessons one learns at court—how to create a false image. And that the image is what people will believe.”

  There did not seem to be anything one could say to that, so Susannah did not try. Olivia and Aunt Augusta had discovered the wardrobe that the princess had abandoned and were exchanging squeals of delight.

  “What…?” Susannah started to speak but decided that this was not a conversation Max needed to hear. She turned to him with a formal smile. “If you would excuse us, Captain?”

  He blinked but bowed with equal formality. “Of course. We will see you at dinner.”

  As soon as the door closed behind him, she turned on Olivia and Augusta. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t raid the princess’s wardrobe! That’s no different from stealing.”

  Olivia looked mortified, at least briefly, but Aunt Augusta said, “Nonsense. If she had wanted her clothes, she would have taken them with her.”

  “All that means is that she couldn’t carry them all with her,” Susannah said.

&nb
sp; “Besides,” Aunt Augusta continued as if Susannah had not spoken, “if Olivia is to portray the princess, she must look the part. How better to do that than in the princess’s clothes?”

  “They won’t fit.” Susannah tried to close the door of the wardrobe.

  “We won’t know that until Olivia tries them on.” Augusta pulled the wardrobe open again and took out a green taffeta trimmed with yellow. “Hmm. Scheele’s green. I don’t care for this color.” Tossing it aside, she took out a beige silk trimmed with purple grosgrain. “This is better. The neckline is low enough for evening, and the full sleeves will be needed. The rooms here seem to be chilly despite the fires.”

  Olivia held it up. “The length seems about right.”

  “And the color is good on you. Try it on, and we’ll see how it fits.” Augusta smiled happily.

  “This just is not right,” Susannah protested, but she knew she had lost the battle.

  A few hours later, they went down to dinner, the “princess” having recovered sufficiently to make an appearance. Olivia wore the beige silk, which was a trifle tight across the bosom but needed only a few stitches to take in the waist.

  Susannah’s misgivings about the dress paled beside her fear that at any moment someone was going to say, “But that’s not the princess!”

  No one did.

  To Susannah’s amazement, the servants—even the ones from Hechingen—accepted Olivia as the princess with no comment, not the slightest look of surprise or doubt. They accepted as well the sudden appearance of two new attendants. Apparently Captain Staufer had mentioned that the ladies-in-waiting had just arrived from Vienna, and everyone accepted this with no question. Susannah realized that she had been expecting some sort of denunciation and could not decide if she was relieved or not when none was forthcoming.

  Standing at the window, she looked out at the lake—yes, she now knew it had once been part of a moat. When the need for that sort of protection became less urgent, Staufer told her, his grandfather had turned part of it into a lake and filled in the rest for a garden.